kez & hay travels 06

Well after a very emotional and difficult farewell to my great travelling buddy, I headed north from Windy Wellington alone. Yes, that's right Kerry is back in blighty now, I know the write ups will not be the same without her talent and nor will the travelling but please keep blogging on with me! Oh and it was planned like that we didn't have any big bust up or anything.

My first stop from Wellington was to a small town called Tarangi. With the Tongariro National Park not far away I booked to do a walk, yes that's what it said but after 8 hours of climbing vertical mountains and hiking through knee deep snow I thought otherwise! The Tongariro crossing as it's known is regarded as the finest one day walk in NZ and the hardest if I had my say. It is home to three active volcanoes and played the role of Mordor (Lord of Rings). The last eruption was from Mt Ruapehu back in 1996. We tramped (kiwi lingo) on the oldest of the three through it's red crater which last erupted in 1926 but there was definitely some activity still going on. Ummm Do mountains usually smoke?...We were the first trampers of the day so it was like stepping on the moon with no footprints to follow. I realised just how hard it was going to be within the first hour when we started asending a side dubbed "The devil's staircase". In true Kerry and Hayley style I was at the back of the group puffing and panting but this time complaining and cursing to myself. It was all worth it at the top though as the views were stunning.Back at the hostel we celebrated our sucess with a bottle of wine and I worried about how I would walk the next day!

Next stop was Lake Taupo and with a beautiful day ahead of me I hired a bike from the hostel. I fancied a nice bike ride to the Huka waterfalls, little did I know that the bike ride would turn into a professional mountain bike track! Why do we never learn? Anyway after pushing the bike for most of the way I arrived at a great torrent of turquoise water that was plunging through the rocks. I had a well earned icecream and walk through a nearby forest that held some beautiful trees and plants, very relaxing until the 2 hour journey back.

Rotorua nicknamed "Sulphur city" or as I prefer stinkyville. It has the most energetic thermal activity in the country, with bubbling mud pools, gurgling hot springs and evil eggy smells hovering around. I visited a Maori village and saw traditional dances, including the famous "war dance" that the All Blacks perform. Enough of culture for day 2 though and it was off to do some "Zorbing". What??? Well it involves throwing yourself into a plastic ball that has a bucket of warm water in and then rolling yourself down a hill at 20mph. Kiwi invented and great fun but not to be done after a large fry up!

With the adrenaline still pumping I headed to the coastal town of Tauranga. This is the main town of the Bay of Plenty and is NZ's principal kiwi-fruit region so I was staying with quite a few pickers in the hostel which meant free kiwis! Here I caught the bus to Mt Maunganui for the day and climbed the 232m-high hill passing cute lambs with not so impressed mums on the way.

With time runing out I made my way to Auckland. Blessed with yet another gorgeous day I set out to explore the busy city. Stoping by at the Auckland museum and relaxing in the Eden garden with it's great views of the city from Mt Eden. To celebrate my last night in this wonderful country, I went up the skytower to see the sunset with a glass of vino from the sky high bar. See you in OZ. 

Akaroa, on the Banks Peninsula, narrowly missed being colonised by the French by 2 days, as the Brits got wind of France's plans and rushed to the defense.  This hasn't stopped this beautiful seaside town having a very "a la France" atmosphere, with boulangeries and brasseries galore.  So we felt very much at home here.

Next stop, Hanmer Springs, where the thermal pools are, was just what the doctor ordered.  We spent several hours wandering from one thermal pool to the next sulphur pool.  At first it seemed ridiculous to be back in our bikinis in 2 degree weather, but the pools soon warmed us up.  Apparently the sulphur pools are supposed to be really good for the skin, but how can anything that smells that bad be good for you! 

At last we had made our way around to Kaikoura, where we both hoped to spot some whales.  In fact we were extremely lucky as we ended up seeing 7 whales at very close range, plus over 100 dolphins.  It was really "awesome" to see these amazing creatures so close up, Hayley got plenty of photo opportunities.  After such a successful whale watch trip we decided to sign up for dolphin swimming the next day.  However it was Sunday and we think the dolphins were having a lie-in as we didn't see any.  Can't say we were that disappointed as swimming in the freezing sea at 8.00 am had lost its appeal by the time we were in the boat!

With only a few days left in the south island we headed up to the Malborough region, famous for its vineyards.  We hired some bikes and did a grand old tour of these wineries, sampling wine after wine in full "Absolutely Fabulous" mode.  Oh its a hard life isn't it?

Last stop in the south island was the pretty sea-side town of Picton, where we said goodbye to our faithful car and got used to lugging "Me shell" on our backs again.  And then it was a very early start for the ferry crossing to Wellington.

Goodness gracious its cold here! Going from 40 degree Singapore to 4 degree Christchurch was a bit of a wake up call! And it seemed the hostel wasn't that prepared for the cold either. Spent a few days visiting this small quaint town, eating gorgeous food (bangers'n'mash being a top favourite) and helping the Kiwi's celebrate their victory against the Wallabies in the rugby. We rented a car for the majority of our time in the south island, and our next destination was the west coast via the very scenic Arthur's Pass. After a couple of days we arrived at Franz Josef village, home of the very famous glacier. With cascades of ice tumbling down the valley into the village, it seemed like a huge gush of water had been frozen in time.  We spent a day walking on, in and through the glacier - again another example of Hayley and Kerry realising they are just not made for such energetic activities. Nursing our bruised muscles, we headed down to the small lakeside town of Wanaka.  Here we had the most exhilirating experience of our lives -skydiving 9,000 ft, including 30 seconds of free fall. Never have we spent so much money for such a quick effect (the jump lasted 4 minutes), but it was worth every penny. Absolutely amazing.

Queenstown lies about 2 hours south and is the adrenalin capital of NZ. However, after spending the equivalent of our weekly budget in SE asia on a 4 minute jump-thrill, we decided to play it low for a while.  Hayley didn't last long at this as she sped off on a jet boat, being flung around the boat as it did 360 degree spins.  We went to Deer Park Heights to see some of the places where Lord of the Rings was filmed (it had to be done!)  Kerry also got very nearly eaten alive by resident goats, whom she was trying to feed.

At this point of our trip we turned back north, heading for Lake Tekapo (which is a blazing turquoise colour due to its rock sediment). This was a memorable journey simply because we were driving on a practically empty tank for what seemed like hours - "so they don't have petrol stations in the mountains then!" We happily rolled into the nearest town after a 2 hour tense drive. We arrived at Lake Tekapo to 5 inches of snow and so we spent the whole evening huddled around the hostel's log fire. Luckily the next day the snowy weather had calmed down so we went back to the east coast to the french influenced town of Akaroa.